The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display component having high reliability and a transparent conductive substrate useful as an electrode substrate for the liquid crystal display component. Having high gas barrier property and high stability under high temperature and high humidity, the transparent conductive substrate can be used suitably as an electrode substrate in the field of a flat panel display such as a photosensitive conductor, a surface light emitter, an EL-display or the like besides the liquid crystal display component.
Recently, in the field of a flat panel display such as a liquid crystal display component, there is demand for the improvement of breakage resistance, and weight and thickness reduction. In order to meet the demand, the studies for using a transparent conductive substrate prepared by placing a semiconductor layer of indium oxide, tin oxide, an oxide of tin-indium alloy or the like, a metal layer such as an oxide layer of gold, silver or a palladium alloy, or a layer formed by combining said semiconductor layer and said metal layer as a transparent conductive layer on a film consisting of a transparent polymer, as an electrode substrate of a liquid crystal display component is continuously carried out. For such a substrate, it is required to have high chemical resistance against various organic solvents, acids and alkalis which are used on patterning of electrodes, the lamination of alignment layer and various washings in the assembling process of a panel. Further, it is commonly required to have a high gas barrier property to increase the reliability against bubbles generated inside the liquid crystal cells of the panel. Regarding the gas barrier property, for example, publication WO94/23332, Japanese patent publication 2796573 and Japanese patent publication 2790144 describe substrates having a laminate of an organic gas barrier layer consisting of a vinyl alcohol polymer, a vinylidene chloride polymer or the like, or an inorganic gas barrier layer consisting of silicon oxide, aluminum oxide or the like. However, it is difficult to achieve a gas barrier property, especially a water vapor barrier property equivalent to the glass substrate which conventionally has been used, in cases where the organic or inorganic gas barrier layer is used in a single layer or in a plurally laminated layer, or even in cases where the organic and inorganic gas barrier layers are used in combination. The following trouble actually occurs. That is, when a panel using such a substrate is allowed to stand for a long time in a high-temperature and high-humidity environment, water vapor intrudes into the inside of a liquid crystal cell, the impedances between a pair of electrodes facing each other of the liquid crystal cell and between a pair of adjacent electrodes inside the substrate decrease, and as a result, display defects of the panel such as image bleeding or cross talk are apt to occur.
The object of the present invention is to provide a new liquid crystal display component having high reliability.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a liquid crystal display component resistant to the deterioration of display quality for a long time.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a transparent conductive substrate suitable for the above-mentioned liquid crystal display component.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a new transparent conductive substrate having an excellent gas barrier property.
The inventors of the present invention pursued zealous studies to solve the above-mentioned problem, they found that the problem can be solved by controlling the moisture dependency of the surface insulation resistance of the lower layer in the transparent conductive layer and the gas barrier property of the transparent conductive substrate. The present invention has been completed based on the finding.
That is, the present invention is achieved by a liquid crystal display component comprising a pair of electrode substrates and a liquid crystal layer placed between the electrode substrates, wherein the electrode substrates are characterized in that (i) the electrode substrates comprise each a transparent polymer substrate (S), a gas barrier layer (X), a hardened resin layer (U) and a transparent conductive layer (E), (ii) the hardened resin layer (U) and the transparent conductive layer (E) are in contact with each other, (iii) the substrates have a water absorption coefficient of 2% or less, (iv) they have a water vapor transmission of 0.1 g/m2/day or less in an environment of 40xc2x0 C. and 90% RH, and (v) the surface in contact with the transparent conductive layer (E) of the hardened resin layer (U) has a surface electric resistivity of 1.0xc3x971013 xcexa9/xe2x96xa1 or more in an environment of 50xc2x0 C. and 30% RH and that of 1.0xc3x971012 xcexa9/xe2x96xa1 or more in an environment of 50xc2x0 C. and 90% RH.